


Kindred

by SaxSpieler



Series: Verǫld Vǫrðr [14]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Angst, Gen, One Shot Collection, creepy Sliske ahoy, headcanons ahoy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-16 20:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7283626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaxSpieler/pseuds/SaxSpieler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of ficlets and one-shots relating to the events of Kindred Spirits</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sliske waits. And waits. And waits some more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit in “Death at Sea” about the player character’s name being brought to Sliske’s attention in the Second Age was fascinating to me (and I think it opens up a lot of possibilities story and lore wise, especially with the accompanying bit in Broken Home with the asylum guestbook). And then, there’s the whole implication that Sliske’s been watching the player from birth…
> 
> Anticipation intensifies.
> 
> So, I got to thinking about how this might pan out in Finley’s canon. Also, I like writing about creepy Sliske.

_Sometime during Year 135 of the 5th Age._

_Bannbreker._

Now, that was a name he couldn’t – wouldn’t – forget. Ever since he had heard it fall from the quavering mouth of that deranged sailor in Nabor’s asylum, it had rattled around in the back of his mind, a seemingly rogue thought among many.

As he watched the young man amble his way through Taverly, however, the thought found purchase, sinking its claws deep into his curiosity and refusing to let go.

The man was a tall, gangly affair with a woodcutter’s axe hanging from his belt; an insignificant looking human if there ever was one. The only thing that stood out was his name.

_Bannbreker. Have I finally found you?_

He slunk out from the shadow of a towering oak tree and wound his way across the street, inching closer to the man. As he did, he racked his memory, forming the image of that long dead sailor hanging from the bars of his cell behind his eyes.

_“Do you really think you can save them, Finley Bannbreker? You can’t.”_

He drew himself up beside Bannbreker, just half a foot – and half a dimension – from the man’s shoulder, and peered down at him. Even this close, he still couldn’t see what made the man either capable of time travel or the bearer of some great, cosmic destiny that defied the ages.

Suddenly, Bannbreker’s face lit up, a goofy, lopsided smile breaking his face.

“Ava!” With that, he broke into a jog. Sliske quickened his own pace, following him towards a small house on the side of the road. A young woman stood there, another unremarkable human, and she met Bannbreker in the street, nearly throwing herself into his arms.

“Liam! What a surprise!”

Sliske hissed at the revelation, shaking his head. The man was a Bannbreker, yes, but not the right one.

He would just have to look again. Perhaps this Liam had a sibling named Finley. A cousin, a nibling, or even…

_A child?_

Well, if he didn’t already, things certainly seemed to be headed in that direction, if the way the two humans embraced was any indication.

Yes, he could see it. A child of these two revelers might just be the key he had been looking for since the Second Age.

He could wait. Not long, but he could wait.

_30, Novtumber, 136 of the 5th Age_

The first Bannbreker child came in late autumn, heralded by the falling maple leaves and the overwhelming scent of pine sap.

A girl, screaming her proportionally oversized head off.

Sliske wanted so badly to plug his ears and rid himself of that terrible racket, but he needed his hearing.

He needed to hear her name.

Liam, the father, passed the newborn to Ava and wiped a sweaty lock of hair from her face.

“What should we name her?” he asked. Ava cradled the howling newborn against her chest, breathing heavy from labor.

“Athrhan,” she gasped. “Athrhan Bannbreker.”

Sliske grumbled, stepping deeper into the Shadow Realm.

He might have to wait a bit longer.

_1, Fentuary, 138 of the 5th Age_

The second child came a little over a year and a half after the first.

A boy, thankfully quieter than his sister.

Liam named the child this time.

“Sullivan,” he said with a firm nod. “After my grandfather.”

Biting back a curse, Sliske stalked off once again.

He was getting tired of waiting.

_11, Moevyng, 140 of the 5th Age_

The third child wouldn’t come.

_Fantastic. This might be the one, and it refuses to be born._

It had been many hours since Ava went into labor, and still, it felt like no progress had been made.

Liam was panicking.

Ava was screaming.

The now three-year-old Athrhan was holding tight to the sobbing one-year-old Sullivan, not making a single sound.

Sliske was pacing the floor, wringing his hands.

Finally, though the Shadow Realm muffled the sound, a newborn was wailing.

Sliske darted to the bedside and peered over the new life as it was cradled by its thoroughly exhausted mother.

A girl.

“Wow,” Ava panted, stroking the infant’s head. “This little warrior was nearly the end of me.”

Liam chuckled weakly.

“Our little warrior,” he mumbled, voice half a step from sobbing. Suddenly, his head shot up, his gaze locking with Ava’s. “There’s a name. Finley.”

A wild smile worked its way across Sliske’s face.

_Finally._

“Aye. Finley Bannbreker. Our little warrior.”

_FINALLY!_

Sliske darted off into the far reaches of the Shadow Realm, where the barking, inhuman laughter that boiled from his throat could not be heard.

_Later…_

Satisfied that no one was around to see him, he stepped from the Shadow Realm and crossed the room, stepping lightly on the unfortunately creaky wooden floor. A cradle sat before him; it had once held the sleeping forms of the first two Bannbreker children.

Now, however, it held the third.

The Bannbreker child he had waited for.

He bent over the infant, now a few weeks old, and ever so gently stroked the top of her head, feeling the soft wisps of almost invisible hair tickle his fingertips. She stirred in her sleep at the action, sputtering comically, and he smiled.

The wait was over. Now, he would watch and see.

“Finley Bannbreker,” he very nearly cooed.

 _“My_ little warrior.”


	2. Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: how many times can I use the word ‘feel?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Inspired by Sliske’s beatdown during Kindred Spirits. I noticed at one point he stomps on the PC’s back slightly off-screen, mirroring what happened to Finley during RoTM in her canon.)
> 
> As the Sixth Age goes on, she just gets hecked up more and more, physically and emotionally. But especially physically. She loses an arm below the elbow during Nomad’s Elegy, and I had an idea for her to lose something else (besides bits of her soul) during Kindred Spirits. Considering how many times she’s been smashed in the spine, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch.

She lays on the cold stone, feeling everything.

Her ribs are shattered. Again. She struggles to breathe.

Her head throbs from where that _bastard_ of a Mahjarrat smashed it against the wall. With each throb, her vision blurs more and more.

She feels her soul searing her insides, floundering to recover from Sliske’s attempt at tearing it from her body.

She claws at the ground with her remaining hand in an attempt to right herself, but she feels her spine protest agonizingly, forcing her back down with a whimper.

Sliske took some pages from Lucien’s book, it seems. Knowing him, it wouldn’t be a stretch for her to assume that he knows her spine’s been compromised from multiple assaults over the past few years, starting that day at the 18th Ritual. It’s her weak spot, and he knows that.

Perhaps it’s broken. She can’t tell. Her legs feel fine, though. They feel-

She pauses.

They don’t feel damaged. But, they don’t feel quite all there either.

She tries to move them, tries to gather them under her so she can make another attempt at standing and face that _scunnersome twit,_ Sliske, once more.

But, they don’t respond - she can’t move them.

She can’t feel her legs.


	3. The Trade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I needed to torture Finley some more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the idea of the WG and Sliske having traded bits of their souls (whether purposefully on Sliske’s part or otherwise) is really interesting. I also have a headcanon about a possible side effect of such a trade, and it’s not a happy one. At all.

Something was wrong.

Besides the absence of any control over her lower half, that was.

Her soul was…

…well, there was certainly something wrong with it.

She remembered back to the first time her soul was almost torn from her body. It had been a strange experience. Painful, yes, but more strange than agonizing. An icy hand, reaching down the back of her neck, closing around her lungs and heart, and tugging.

This time, however, had been different.

She shuddered as she recalled the feeling.

Thousands of rough, grating teeth gnawing at her very being. They ripped, tore, and left something else entirely in their wake. She can’t describe what that something else was, but it felt oily, acidic, and – for lack of a better descriptor – snake-like.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t her.

It writhed slowly within her chest, whispering. She couldn’t make out the words, but she had a feeling that they were neither friendly nor supportive. Sometimes, it poked at her mind, implanting foreign emotions, impulses, and other things that just shouldn’t have been there to begin with.

Sighing, she reached over and tugged her limp legs off the bed by her trousers, easing herself into a sitting position so that she could look out the window at the trees that laced in between the crystal spires of Prifddinas.

Jay hadn’t been lying when she said the city was beautiful.

Suddenly, that oily and acidic replacement for her lost bits of soul sparked to life again, drawing her attention from the trees and onto the crystal spires themselves. Tiny, almost indecipherable fragments – images, mostly – flashed before her eyes.

A grand city, ancient and powerful.

A fountain made from the remains of some giant, draconic beast with many heads.

A theater stage, framed by blood-red, and possibly blood-covered, curtains.

A dungeon.

Torture instruments.

Wooden masks carved into a skeletal rictus.

She put a hand to her chest, wheezing.

Those images were familiar, even sickeningly endearing, to her, though she had never seen any them before.

They were memories.

But they weren’t _hers._

Realization crept up her spine like a parasite and nestled in her mind.

She had been through this before.

When Guthix had augmented her soul with bits of his own just before his death, a similar thing had happened; bits and pieces of his memories had wormed their way into her soul, displacing some of her own. Her childhood home and the forest that surrounded it sometimes blurred against the backdrop of a now dead world being crushed under the feet of a giant porcine deity flanked by thousands of identical soldiers, and her siblings’ faces sometimes shifted and flickered, suddenly sprouting mint-green fur and long, red hair.

Now, it was happening again.

Feeling sick to her stomach, she parsed through the facts.

Sliske had tried to steal her soul with the Staff of Armadyl, and had succeeded in breaking a few bits off, but had stopped short to have his little temper tantrum that had ended with her broken spine.

Had he accidentally – or purposely – grafted parts of his own soul onto hers in the process, and vice versa?

And if so – if those were Sliske’s memories she was seeing – what had she lost as a result?

Quickly, she shuffled through her most important memories, making sure that they were still all intact.

She remembered Adrius. Good.

She remembered Jay, Marin, Cassius, Geilir, Csongor, and Macaulay. Also good.

She remembered Moia, Akthanakos, Wahisietel, Kharshai, Zanik, Korasi, and V. Very good.

She remembered Zemouregal, Khazard, Saradomin, Sir Elian, Lucien, Nomad, and Sliske. Well, good in the sense that she knew who to give a wide berth the next time she should meet any one of them.

She remembered becoming the World Guardian, and all that the mantle meant. Perhaps not the most pleasant thing to remember, but one of the more useful.

She remembered her family. At this, she sighed in relief.

Her six younger siblings: Teague, Tara, Conor, Brendan, Maeve, and Aideen.

Her big brother Sullivan, Regent of Miscellania.

Her big sister Athrhan Iron-Arms and her fearsome, unforgiving stare.

Her mother and father – _wait, what were their names?_

Her hand balled into a fist on the bed sheet as she began to panic.

_Oh no._

_What were their names?_

_No._

_NO!_

Choking sobs bubbled from her throat, rising to a din as she clawed at her scalp as if the answer was hidden just under the skin.

_WHAT WERE THEIR NAMES!?!_

—

_He paced the room, something odd stirring in his chest. It sparked and fizzed with an energy - a personality - that was not his own amidst the shadowy essence that very much was._

_It was very…green, and it seemed to sing and chant in a familiar voice carrying a residual Fremennik accent._

_Gritting his teeth and wiping a blood-covered glove on the nearby stone, he focused on the chanting that was steadily setting his nerves on edge._

_The voice repeated two names on an endless loop._

_Liam._

_Ava._

_Liam._

_Ava._


	4. Coincidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a string of coincidences is mistaken for destiny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon for the events leading up to Sliske finding out the player’s name from the sailor in Kindred Spirits (applied to Finley’s canon), partly since I’m not 100% sure I jive with pre-destiny in regards to the WG’s story.

The man stepped gingerly around the broken fence, careful to avoid the splinters and nails that threatened to tear his trousers. As he finally entered the paddock, something crunched and squelched under his boot, and he jumped at the sudden change of footing.

_???_

Looking down, the mass of feathers and blood surrounding his foot clued him in as to what he had just stepped on.

A dead chicken. Chewed to a pulp and missing several body parts.

He grumbled, pausing to scrape the bits of gore from his boot on the broken fence.

“Gustaf? Is that you, there?”

Gustaf Johannhes looked up from his boot-scraping at the approaching farmer. Impossibly tall and weedy, with strangely chiseled facial features that, in the right light, might have looked skeletal, he more resembled a scarecrow than the one who might have planted it in the field.

“Hello, Fin. It’s been a while,” Gustav called, raising a hand in greeting.

“I see you’ve found the latest victim.” Fin motioned to the mess at Gustaf’s feet with a sigh. “These foxes are going to be the death of my entire flock.”

“Hm.”

“So, what brings you here?” Fin asked, removing his straw hat to scratch at the mess of dark, sweat-slicked strands of hair underneath. “Can’t be the dead hens, can it?”

“There’s been a tsunami somewhere south-east of the empire. The Glory sails tomorrow morning to investigate the area.”

“Ah, I see. Need a last little taste of solid ground beneath your feet, then?”

“You could say that.”

The two men began tramping across the field to the coop just behind Fin’s pitifully small farmhouse. Gustaf shook his head at the site as the smell of compost, wet earth, and bird droppings snaked up his nose and burned his sinuses.

“I don’t understand why you gave up on sailing to start this farm, Fin. We could’ve been in the Lord’s navy together, but you settled for…this.” He gestured broadly to the squalor, catching his friend’s attention. Fin’s brow furrowed in response, a frown working its way across his face.

“I know it’s far from glamorous. But, I’d rather deal with foxes and a leaky roof than the risk and politics of Zaros’ military. Call me a coward - I don’t particularly give a damn - but I’d rather have safety than glory.”

Something about Fin’s statement caused Gustaf to balk for a moment.

“Safety? Fin, you used to swing from the rigging like a drunken monkey not a year ago! Why the sudden caution?”

Fin was silent for a while, resigned to staring ahead at the coop. Even at this distance, the compromised fencing and the in-progress patch job were apparent.

“I can’t say,” he said finally, his voice low and quavering. “I just…”

He suddenly stopped walking and wiped his brow, his chest heaving.

“Fin?” Gustaf placed a hand on the farmer’s shoulder, shaking him slightly. “Fin, are you alright?”

After a moment, Fin nodded, breathing deeply.

“The sea…” he mumbled. “The water. It’s not home anymore, Gustaf. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t look at, or even think about, the sea without feeling…wrong.”

Gustaf stared hard at the trembling farmer, searching for the wink, the laugh, or the grin that would no doubt show up at any moment and prove to him that, yes, the ex-sailor before him was indeed joking.

But, they didn’t come. Fin continued to shiver despite the sun beating down on his back.

Gustaf waited patiently.

Finally, the farmer drew in a deep breath and regained composure, brushing Gustaf’s hand from his shoulder.

“Any…anyway,” he wheezed as they continued the trek toward the coop. “You saw what those damned foxes have done to my chickens, yes? I tried everything. Traps. Smelly plants. Even staying up all night and shooting at anything that comes waltzing into my field. Nothing’s worked. I’ve decided to just keep reinforcing the fencing around the coop, but they still get through, somehow.”

“Those must be some desperate foxes.”

“No doubt. I’m considering smithing some metal panels or something similar. Maybe a guard dog. That is, if the dog doesn’t have a taste for poultry as well.”

The two finally came to the coop. Fin bent down, picking a plank from the pile and leaning it adjacent to what was obviously the last plank he had managed to nail in place before Gustaf’s arrival. Plucking a hammer from his belt and a nail from a separate pile on the ground, he began to drive it though the wood, the loud hammering causing the chickens inside to flutter and squawk wildly.

“Why waste your energy on these chickens anyway? You could go for sheep. Even cows, if you could find the money.”

“I can’t defer to hungry foxes,” Fin said, hammering a second nail into the plank and scooping a third off the ground. “I have to try and save my chickens.”

Gustaf shook his head, sighing.

“Do you really think you can save them, Findlay Bone-Breaker?” he asked, recalling Fin’s old sailing nickname. “You can’t. The foxes will always find new ways to get to your chickens.”

“Ever the optimist, Gustaf.”

“At least I’m not afraid of salt water…”

Fin stood suddenly at the scoff, brandishing the hammer between Gustaf’s eyes. His own eyes glinted dangerously from beneath the brim of his hat - a bright amber that reminded Gustaf of the gold trimming on the Glory’s cruciform figurehead.

“Do you actually have business here? Or are you just going to mock me some more, sailor?” he snarled, twitching slightly.

“Business?” Gustaf pushed the hammer out of his face, voice rising to a din. “Of course I have business here, Fin! Why else would I have come to this sorry mud-hole?”

“Then go about your business and get off of my land.” Fin’s steely voice seemed to send a palpable chill through the air, and Gustaf flinched, taking a step back in the mud. The change was odd. Unexpected. A bit frightening, if he was being honest with himself.

“Fine,” he sighed, regaining his footing. “Fine. I came to say goodbye - maybe even convince you to come with me to the Glory. But, I see now that that’s not going to happen.”

“You’re right. It’s not.”

“Right.”

Neither of them moved for a solid minute. The only sounds were that of the innocent, unsuspecting chickens clucking away within the coop.

“Well,” Gustaf began, waving a hand dismissively. “Goodbye, Fin.” With that, he turned and slogged back through the muddy field, heading for the broken fence through which he had come.

“Goodbye, Gustaf.”

***

_Darkness._

_Water._

_Abyss._

_The claws._

_Tearing flesh._

_Tearing my mind._

_Help?_

_Who’s there?_

_Light._

_Someone there._

_Tall._

_Eyes._

_Gold._

_My friend._

_He was right._

_Right about the water._

_Tell him._

_Crawl._

_Metal bars._

_Climb._

_Speak._

_WARN HIM._

_Speak._

_SPEAK!_

“D…do you really think you can save them, Fin…Findlay B…Bone-Breaker? You…you can’t. The…the spiral of time…it leads only to th…the gaping maw of eternity. And this…this is Xau-Tak!”

_Spoken._

_Noise._

_Chaos._

_Darkness._

***

Sliske held his quill just above the journal page, unsure of what to write. The sailor - the one Nabor had shown him - had tried to tell him something. Something of great cosmic importance, it seemed, given the circumstances.

The sailor had also mentioned a name. A clue, perhaps?

Sliske had to write it down. No detail left unrecorded.

There was only one problem.

He had no idea how to spell it.

The patient’s words had been slurred, nearly gurgled; Sliske, for the life of him, couldn’t parse through the syllables to reconstruct the name.

He had to try, however.

Sighing, he mouthed the sounds under his breath, and began to write.

~~Finn-Leigh Bohnbaker~~

~~Fin-Lee Baanbreaker~~

Finley Bannbreker

_???_

_Well, it’ll have to do._


End file.
